The above conversation between Peter J and jwinch2 is interesting, although I wonder if we can compare the recovery of patrimony of the autonomous ritual churches with that of the Latin church. I’m very sympathetic with Eastern churches’ struggles to reclaim their patrimony. As a Latin Catholic, I’d be much less comfortable with a similar endeavor unless the following were fully recognized:
- The Latin tradition was never solely ‘Latin’ It has never sought to preserve only the traditions of its own church. It’s no accident that so many Doctors of the Church wrote in Greek, or even Syriac, nor is it an accident that a Latin (St. Jerome) would coin the phrase ‘veritas hebraica’.
- The Latin church has always been ‘multicultural’: The patristic cultures of Rome and Northern Africa differed greatly, but were mutually enriching. The Franks soon followed. As is well known, the Latin church has been enculturated in staggeringly different contexts, from Mexico to Vietnam.
- The dominant Latin theological school is eclectic: The Ressourcement theological movement, best represented by the journal Communio and its chief thinkers, Henri de Lubac and Hans urs von Balthasar, draw from Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant thinkers, from contemporary philosophy, and from world literature.
To be clear, I do love specifically ‘Latin’ devotions, especially Gregorian chant and Ambrosian hymns, the Liber Usualis, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the rosary, Benediction, all sorts of processions, the sacred music of the renaissance, statues, Florentine art, etc.
But, in calling for the Latin church to recover her patrimony, I have to ask: which patrimony. The austere simplicity of the 12th c. Cistercians? The mystical Thomism of the 13th c. Rhineland mystics? Scholasticism? The counter-reformation? The 16th c. Spanish Carmelite spirituality? Pre-reformation English ‘creeping to the cross’ devotion? Mexican devotion to Mary?
When I hear Latins call for a ‘return to the tradition’, I tend to imagine a pining for the 1950s Tridentine mass. Which is fine, as long as it’s not a truncation of the authentic diversity within the Latin tradition.
Sorry for this long, off-topic post…
